Sección 3. Construcción de la curva de Outflow

Despite Farrington’s (2005) call ten years ago for more systematic attempts at integrating psychopathy into criminological theories, the psychopathy construct has only recently been incorporated within the criminal career perspective. In their review of recent criminal career research, DeLisi and Piquero (2011) emphasized that criminal career measures can be linked to biosocial development, including personality disorders and psychopathy in particular. Moreover, DeLisi and Piquero (2011) speculated that because the size of the population of individuals with psychopathy mirrored the population of individuals who were the most chronic offenders, it was possible that these two groups were comprised of more or less the same individuals (also see Vaughn & DeLisi, 2008). However, few studies have actually examined the relationship between psychopathy and offending from adolescence to adulthood, and as such whether chronic offenders present

a clinical profile suggestive of the presence of psychopathic traits or psychopathy is unclear.

Dyck and colleagues (2013) measured symptoms of psychopathy in adolescence and examined offending frequency from age 12 to 23 in a sample of male (n = 80) and female (n = 46) adolescent offenders. Adolescents with moderate or high symptoms of psychopathy were more frequent and versatile offenders compared to Dyck et al.’s (2013) low-symptom group. The frequency and versatility of offending are conceptually similar to behavioral measures within the PCL:YV’s antisocial facet. Although the Dyck et al. (2013) study is undoubtedly beneficial to understanding the association between psychopathy and offending, offending frequency was examined rather than offending trajectories. A consequence is that (a) groups of offenders were examined ex ante, and (b) offending frequency over age was not examined to differentiate high rate offenders that stopped offending in adulthood versus high rate offenders that continued to offend in adulthood.

Using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), Piquero et al. (2012) were the first to examine the relationship between symptoms of psychopathy and offending trajectories. Trajectories were measured from adolescence through age 40 for a subsample of 304 of the original 411 boys born recruited in South London in 1953 as part of the CSDD. Five offending trajectories were identified: non- offenders (62.3%), low adolescence peak offenders (18.6%), low rate chronics (11.3%), high adolescence peak offenders (5.4%), and high rate chronics (2.5%). This study represented a departure from the typical taken within research on psychopathy, where psychopathy is measured as an independent variable and then offending outcomes are evaluated after a follow-up period20_{. Here, psychopathy, assessed using the PCL:SV (Hart}

et al., 1995), was not measured until age 48. By this design, offending trajectories were one of a total of 27 variables independent variables that were used to predict PCL:SV scores at age 48. A key assertion in this study was that there was sufficient research indicating that psychopathy is stable across the life course, and, therefore, retrospective analysis across the previous life course stages regarding its association with criminal trajectories is theoretically appropriate. To examine the relationship between psychopathy

20 _{Importantly, this is not meant to be a specific critique of the research design of the CSDD, as}

and offending trajectories, PCL:SV scores were measured in a number of different ways, including specific examination of scores on Factor 1 (F1) and Factor 2 (F2) of the PCL:SV, which combine interpersonal/affective facets and lifestyle/antisocial facets, respectively. The authors also examined each of the individual PCL:SV facets (interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial) as well as total PCL:SV scores. Piquero et al. (2012) observed significant relationships between symptoms of psychopathy and association with the highest-rate offending trajectory, regardless of the type of PCL:SV factor structure examined. Other than the interpersonal facet, as anticipated, the most serious offense trajectory, the high-rate chronic group, had the highest average PCL:SV factor/facet scores and total scores (12.17), whereas the trajectory showing the earliest signs of desistance had the lowest PCL:SV scores. (Piquero et al., 2012).

Very importantly, Piquero et al. (2012) examined the impact of offending trajectories on psychopathy scores, controlling for two indexes of individual and environmental factors comprised of 27 unique variables. All factors were based on measures to age 10 and before any criminal activity, which avoided criterion contamination. The individual index was comprised of dichotomous scores for 12 risk/independent variables: (1) low junior school attainment, (2) daring disposition, (3) small height, (4) low nonverbal IQ, (5) nervous/withdrawn boy, (6) high extraversion of boy, (7) high neuroticism of boy, (8) psychomotor impulsivity, (9) dishonest, (10) unpopular, (11) troublesome, and (12) lacks concentration/restless. The environmental index was comprised of 15 environmental risk factors: (1) harsh attitude/ discipline of parents, (2) teen mother at birth of first child, (3) behavior problems of siblings, (4) criminal record of a parent, (5) delinquent older sibling, (6) large family size, (7) poor housing, (8) low family income, (9) parental disharmony, (10) neurotic/depressed father, (11) neurotic/depressed mother, (12) low socio- economic status, (13) separated parents, (14) poor supervision, and (15) high delinquency rate at school. Controlling for these two indexes, the offending trajectories remained significantly and strongly associated with PCL:SV scores (Piquero et al., 2012).

Although the Piquero et al. (2012) study remains one of the most elaborate and theoretically insightful examinations of criminal offense trajectories and other correlates associated with psychopathy, it relies on a retrospective utilization of the psychopathy

construct. In addition, these researchers acknowledged the extensive and continuing controversies concerning construct validity issues as well as related issues concerning the measurement of psychopathy within community samples. Piquero et al. (2012) discussed the difficulty of justifying the minimum cut-off point on the PCL:SV in their community sample. Although 18 and higher has been considered one PCL:SV cut-off standard (Hart et al., 1995; Cooke, Michie, Hart, & Clark, 2005), they argued that 16 and higher was appropriate for community samples. Arguably, the main justification for essentially arbitrary cut-off points (i.e., the absence of theoretically/conceptually justified minimums) is for their clinical use and the application of diagnostic categories. These researchers appropriately asserted that the dimensional theoretical/conceptual perspective of personality disorders did not require cut-off points but rather simply relied on the use of ordinal categories (e.g., more or less psychopathy). Only two individuals in the CSDD were categorized as “severe” (i.e., 16 or higher PCL: SV total score), whereas 33 cases had scores of 10 or higher. The latter group had a higher likelihood of being convicted at age 40 and had a higher number of average convictions than those below the 10-point cut score. From the traditional trajectory perspective, this finding suggested more symptoms of psychopathy decreased the likelihood of desistance. Yet, with only eight individuals in the high chronic group, it was not evident that this community sample, as Piquero et al. (2012) acknowledged, allowed for a fuller examination of the relationship between psychopathy and criminal offense trajectories (also see, DeLisi & Piquero, 2011). In sum, despite dozens of studies on psychopathy and over 80 studies on offending trajectories (Piquero, 2008), there is a noticeable lack of research bringing the two research interests together. This absence is explained by several conceptual challenges, which were addressed in the current study.

5.1.6.

Integrating the Psychopathy Construct within Criminal